Right Thinking from the Left Coast

Obama’s Pot Wars

At this point, blogging about Obama’s reprehensible approach to the marijuana issue is beating a dead roach. I’ve previously blogged on it here and here. But it seems like more people are catching on to his hypocrisy and promise-breaking. This week, Rolling Stone has a great article that is one-stop shopping for how far Obama is pushing the fight against legal marijuana.

But over the past year, the Obama administration has quietly unleashed a multi­agency crackdown on medical cannabis that goes far beyond anything undertaken by George W. Bush. The feds are busting growers who operate in full compliance with state laws, vowing to seize the property of anyone who dares to even rent to legal pot dispensaries, and threatening to imprison state employees responsible for regulating medical marijuana. With more than 100 raids on pot dispensaries during his first three years, Obama is now on pace to exceed Bush’s record for medical-marijuana busts. “There’s no question that Obama’s the worst president on medical marijuana,” says Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. “He’s gone from first to worst.”

The federal crackdown imperils the medical care of the estimated 730,000 patients nationwide – many of them seriously ill or dying – who rely on state-sanctioned marijuana recommended by their doctors. In addition, drug experts warn, the White House’s war on law-abiding providers of medical marijuana will only drum up business for real criminals.

It’s an absolute must-read. Each paragraph is more enraging than the last. What we’re seeing here is just how easy it was for the government to reverse the enlightened course it had followed in the late Bush years and early Obama years. About a year ago, the DEA decreed that medical marijuana had no legitimate purpose. And once that wall was breached, a million ambitious prosecutors and agents flooded through the gap. And now the hordes are stampeding over every law, every jurisdiction, every decent instinct. They are threatening not only the dispensaries but anyone who works with dispensaries — banks, landlords … even state regulators.

There are two possibilities here: either Obama, frustrated with Congress blocking his other initiatives, is acting because he wants to do something. Or he has lost control of his own government. Either way, our federal government is acting like a gang of thugs, shoving aside state law at every opportunity and using every tool in their arsenal to … let’s not forget this … keep sick people from smoking a joint, something hat 70% of the America public support.

And that’s the one glimmer of hope we have: the American public. No one is going to holding a protest and get hit by rubber bullets for pot. But our federal government is now so out of step with the public, so up it’s own ass with Drug War propaganda, that this … perhaps … is the thrashing of a dying monster. 70% support medical marijuana. Half support marijuana full stop. Full legalization barely missed in California. Two central American leaders called for legalization last week. Two of the Republican presidential nominees — including the #3 man in the polls — openly support legalization. It is not a taboo subject for anyone … anyone except Congress, that is.

The tide is turning. But the Drug War Monster is strong. It has seduced the law enforcement establishment. It has fed two million people — two fucking million — into our prison system. It provides easy propaganda to spineless politicians. It has all the power and all the guns. And now it’s reminding us of this.

PS: And while we’re on this subject, may I just take a moment to thank justices Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsberg, Breyer and Scalia, whose Constitution-shredding Raich v. Ashcroft decision opened the door for all this? You see what you twits unleashed with your sophistry? Here was what Lee had to say at the time, in response to Stevens saying the issue should be decide by Congress:

Hey, Stevens, you dick. I agree with you in principle, that the best solution to issues is usually through the democratic process. But the court system exists for a reason, and it’s to restrain government power over the rights of the individual. In this case, ten states have, through the democratic process you think is so neato, chosen to permit sick people to use marijuana to alleviate their pain, yet you decided to crap all over that by ruling that a guy who grows a plant in his house for his own personal use is somehow covered by Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce.

Basically this is a huge green light for Congress to basically do whatever the fuck it likes if it can somehow, in some way, sorta, kinda tie it in to interstate commerce. Our highest court just sold us out. And Scalia, fucking Scalia, the one true federalist on the court, actually sided with the majority in this idiocy. I’m just disgusted by the whole thing.

All you social conservatives, remember this the next time you piss and moan about some liberal activist court. This decision is the LITERAL DEFINITION of judicial activism.

Lee was a fucking Cassandra on a lot of this stuff. It’s take seven years, but the full power of our federal government has now being turned against the people of 17 states.

I hope this is just the last gasp of the prison industrial complex… but I fear the tactics will be effective. It shows that drug reformers don’t have a real voice in America. Give up, shut up, go home.

EDIT: I’d say the goal is to try and send weed back underground in those places its popped up. Shut down the dispensaries, send the users back into seclusion, stop the creeping legitimacy that the exposure of day lights gives it.

whose Constitution-shredding Raich v. Ashcroft decision opened the door for all this

ahem… it was wickard v. filburn 317 US 111 …. Raich (which is actually… Gonzales v. Raich 545 US 1… to my knowledge (which may be incomplete) there is no case law from SCOTUS which extends the raich decision to any other party or to the states as a whole (although the decision will certainly be used as a supporting argument, nevertheless as a plurality decision it is non-binding on any party other than Raich et al.

I’m surprised everyone is so surprised about this. Bill Fucking Clinton didn’t put an end to the raids either, and he was a huge pothead!

It wasn’t a secret before the 2008 election that Obama was a nanny stater, and it was pretty clear to me, at least, that Obama, as a hardcore liberal, would do everything he could to expand the power of government. That’s what liberals do. And Obama wouldn’t really be doing much to expand the power of government by going through all the trouble to stomp the government’s left boot on everyone’s neck just to let the right one up. When your goal is to control people, it’s a lot more easily accomplished with more boots on each neck. As far as that goes, I haven’t heard of any suburban police departments being forced to give up their SWAT teams on Obama’s watch either. But then again, realistically speaking, the next big candidate preaching small government won’t do a fucking thing to let Obama’s left boot up when they’re elected either.

At least maybe people will be smart enough to elect an executive this time that isn’t begging or promising to add another boot like Obama was in 2008 and is again this time. Won’t they?

You know, I have never been able to square the left’s belief that everyone is a freaking baby, needing to be coddled and told by government how to do anything and everything, with the freedom to use drugs that many of them want. Especially when, if you go by how they regulate any other behavior they find risky, like someone else paying for people to sit at home & play video games all day instead of working, smoking, or alcohol use, they would have to basically assign case officers to every user, casual or otherwise, to make sure they do not end up as too massive a financial burden on the system once they overdo it.

I have basically not been able to fully accept the idea we can decriminalize drugs without more pain precisely because of things like this. I think our current system of jailing everyone using drugs is stupid as hell, but I do not for a second believe that decriminalized drugs won’t lead to a massive new burden, as big government hawks, on both sides of the isle, use this “crisis” to create a new massive & horribly costly entitlement bureaucracy. I also foresee government needing to be even more intrusive than it is now, for our own good mind you, as a good segment of the population goes overboard with this stuff.

If people where left with the burdens caused by the consequences of their choices, and I was not certain that I would be again tapped and then accused of being a greedy bastard from not wanting to give even more of my income to help these poor needy people I see behaving irresponsibly with their rights, I would not care. But I know better.

Obama likely went back on this promise because he was shown how this would make the shit sandwich he served us – Obamacare – even more costly, and his priority right now is to float that turd for as long as possible.

legalization of medicinal marijuana, could by a stretch, be argued as a Liberal argument. A thin stretch, with ties back to Governmental healthcare “mandates” i guess.

But your not discussing that, you’r tying legal medicinal marijuana use with recreational drug use. In this your no differnt than Hal tying AGW with natural GW. Since, In Hal’s mind, every article that argues for the case of natural global warming, refutes arguments against AGW (i digress).

Besides the obvious comparision to the failed prohibition policies Legalization of recreational drug use should be a conservative argument. Governmen intrusion into the privacy of Legal Law Abiding Citizens (Conservative). Government prohibition without Constitional Authority (Conservative). Repetition of failed policies (Conservative). Build up of Government powers over Citizens (Conservative). Hypocricy of Policy (Conservative). Redistribution of Government funds for non-Constitutionaly mandated programs (Conservative).

Arguing for more Government Power is a Liberal Argument that your supporting

No I am not. I am tying legalized drug use with a new big government bureaucracy, more drastic reduction in freedoms, and a plethora of social justice-wealth redsitribution schemes being demanded to deal with whatever problems legalized drugs would cause the junkies. I have zero problems with responsible people that bear the consequences of their use, but I doubt the later will ever be viable, and I firmly believe the cost of what we end up with will be far higher than the shitstorm we have now.

I have no problem at all with medical use, even when abused, and it is rampantly abused based in my personal experience – I have 10 friends I know with medical waivers and only one is legit – at all. Again, my problem stems from the fact that I will be made to pay for stupid people doing stupid things.

Option Four: Obama doesn’t to be attacked on another from during the election. Weak on drugs is a tried and true attack line. As long as he is busting cancer ridden grannies getting their meds, no one can throw that line at him.